Our new heroes are Maurice and Katia Krafft, French Volcanologists who filmed and photographed more erupting volcanoes than anyone before or since. A few clips of their incredible footage appeared in the first volcano video we got from the library (Volcano, By D.K.). They stood in space suits right in front of a towering wall of molten lava. Then we got another volcano video (Volcanoes! by National Geographic) and it turned out it was all about the Kraffts and their volcano-chasing lifestyle and the insane danger level they lived with. (past tense.) In one scene Maurice takes a little rubber dingy out into a lake of sulfuric acid to take samples. Katia mentions that the lava is flowing under the rock bridge she’s standing on, and that if she steps wrong she could fall through and be cooked. She smiles. They are charismatic and wonderful– and they were killed together on a volcano in Japan in 1991. So now Isaac wants to be a volcanologist. Which, okay. Sounds very interesting, but be careful!
He likes to talk about lava and magma and especially likes explaining things to some smaller creature. Like his doll Nils. Or a tiny plastic knight. Or, most recently his imaginary friend, the dragon named Ralphie, who appeared in corporeal form recently at a gift shop and has since been Isaac’s constant companion. A conversation between Ralphie and Isaac:
Isaac: You see, the Earth is a Big Ball. And we live right on the side of it.
Ralphie (me): No. The Earth is flat like a book or else we’d fall off.
Isaac (stooping down to Ralphie’s height to make eye contact, gesturing emphatically): No. It’s round, Ralphie. And we’re moving through space right now. We’re going around the sun. (aside to mom: are we going around the sun? mom: yes.)
Ralphie: But why don’t we fly off then?
Isaac: Because we’re in our house and it’s a very strong house.
Ralphie: But why doesn’t our whole house fly off?
Isaac: the GRAVITY, Ralphie! Gravity! It holds us down. And we drop things and they fall. It’s gravity. And volcanoes come up from the center of the Earth, where it’s very HOT! The magma and the lava come right out! And they can burn you! You better stay far away. Except that volcanologists can go close by to look.
We made a volcano in the kitchen recently, using a funnel (upside down), a pile of baking soda and a whole lot of vinegar. We tinkered with the recipe (proportions and quantity) and tried out adding food coloring to make the lava red. Isaac didn’t care about anything but the eruptions. I would pour in a little vinegar and he would say, “Let’s do it again!” I would do it again and he would say, “Let’s do it again!” So on, and so forth until we ran through our entire store of baking soda and vinegar– one new box and two half bottles. (Red wine vinegar works well because it colors the whole thing a lovely pink. The cider vinegar is okay, but the the lava is sort of an ugly brown. I stayed away from the $18 balsamic.)
He really, really wanted to have the fancy official volcano model they were selling for $35 at the Science Center. But I got us out of there without buying it (distracted him with a little pink thing that farted for only $3). It said ages ten and up and looked way too complicated for us. At its heart it is just an upside down funnel with baking soda and vinegar, just that it has a big styrofoam faux mountain and better, more, the right amounts, of lava fixins. Maybe for a special occasion.
Meanwhile, he’s been catching me off-guard with obscure points of American history. Such as, “Mommy, what are the Hessians?” (you know, those German mercenaries hired by the British to fight us during the Revolutionary War…) and “Mommy, what did Von Steuben did?” (You know, that Prussian baron who came over and helped George Washington create a disciplined fighting force…) Ben has been reading to him. I need to read these things, too, I realize, so that I can field the questions. Not the first time I’ve been learning things at the same time as my three-year-old. But it is rather humbling.
An amusing misunderstanding:
Isaac: Is that Washington? (gesturing to the TV, an interview show, when we still had TV)
Me: No, honey. That’s another guy. His name is Ted Nugent.
(Well, he did have a pony tail.)
Also, the pink is fully launched. Yes! Wear it proud! The brown and pink hightops are a complete hit. In fact he won’t wear any other shoe, ever. He also has been sporting his pink golf shirt, layered over a gray long-sleeved t-shirt for warmth. (Vassar colors– the gray of ignorance and the pink dawn of insight, or something like that. …Sam?) He also has a new ultra-short haircut that was something of a mistake, but we’re getting used to it. He is developing a sort of retro-chic look that smacks of the 50s or the 80s. The pink and brown motif adds to the mid-century modern feel of his new fashion. Also, his skin tone looks great in pink, it turns out. Maybe he’s a “spring”? The other day I took him to the planetarium and the other mothers couldn’t help notice his high style. “He likes pink a lot,” I explained. “I can see that!” said another mother, admiringly. “He looks great. When we were selling our house, the realtor was wearing a pink shirt and my daughter kept asking, ‘why is he wearing pink?’ and I told her, ‘well, anyone can wear pink, you know…'” Hm. Can they? I guess they can. I noticed that people looked at him a little bit, well, questioningly,– is he a boy who loves pink, or a girl with an ultra-short buzz cut?– but people understand that preschoolers have strong opinions about their outfits. You have to go with it. It’s much more important that he develop a sense of his own power over his personhood. Ben took him out for lunch dressed like that, lunch with a buddy and his kids. Ben said, as he was leaving, “I’m going to have to tell him that you dressed him.” I just said okay. But of course it wasn’t really me who dressed Isaac. He dressed himself– and he loves the way he looks.